Ashenvale is eternal.
S1. E4. (World of Warcraft)
The beaches in the northwest of Ashenvale are bleak. The heavy rains mix the sand into mulch. But even as grey water beats onto the grey shore, an inexplicable energy remains. A residual promise leftover in the sand you can’t help but listen to.
But the tides are beating you away from the coast and into the forest. And as you make your way from there into the treeline, that promise soon pays off.
It shoots upwards in all directions around you. It feels reductive to use the word forest because it’s so all encompassing that you can’t be sure where it starts and ends. As soon as you enter it becomes your entire world.
Here among the trees, the painter has rediscovered the colours on their palette. These are more than just greens and browns. They are cypresses and ochres, chestnuts and viridians. And in case you had forgotten, there are violets and purples too, a reminder that there’s magic baked in the boughs of these trees.
Ashenvale glows with certainty. Ancient orbs and crystals created for unknown purposes. Large towers carved out of white stone that could be bones from a primordial beast. Pediments that fell so long ago that they are now a part of the earth. The stone has healed itself. Their imperfection has become established.
Look up and you won’t see a slither of sky under the canopy. The light comes from soft stones that glow, except at night, when the branches separate to let the moon in. Look down and you see a layered mass of leaves, flowers, and shrubs, which part gently when you step across them. Under the ground and breaking its way through the soil is a torrential network of roots, rolling waves petrified into oak, maple and yew.
The long path feels like the midrib of an unfolding leaf. The mass of fauna surrounds you on each side, creating an almost haptic experience of being watched. If you stay still and close your eyes, you can hear the sound of the grass eking from its shoots. Can hear the creak of the roots as they press against each other under the ground. The cascading sound of the leaves hitting each other in the sky like a choir calling out for you to keep walking.
There is also the timbre of hoots and distant growls. This is the animals’ home after all. Despite the evidence of civilization that fits neatly around the flora. Mystral Lake’s healing waters and the watchtower of Raynewood Retreat both provide a respite from long journeys. So does the town of Astranaar, where drops of water hit the surrounding lake with a glow. Unobtrusive lamps hang from ornate wooden divides. Though there are no walls anywhere you walk, you feel protected. The elves are disinterested hosts, focussed on other tasks. They are even indifferent to the rain. It runs off their bodies and onto the ground like they are one entity entirely.
Continue through the town and you find crossroads that have real consequences. Roads built around trees that are so wide you’re forced to choose a direction to navigate them. There are also thin trees that whip in the wind and coil into one another. Trees that house entire families, so big you can run across them. Flatter and sturdier than some of the paths, and safer too.
Occasionally there are caves built into the root systems of these ancient conifers. Although they look like dead ends, they bloom on the other side to reveal secretive temples of worship. The edge, where the grass meets the rock, hides throughways to the mountains and deserts, watched over by dedicated guardians. In these parts the canopy protects the saplings. It’s a surprise to see something so young here, it seems too big to be growing. And until you reach the edge you can’t imagine there’s anywhere left to go.
Luckily for those risking getting lost, even the signposts are pieces of art. They stand out as beacons to craft itself. Carved meticulously and guiding the way to places like Felwood, Azshara and Moonglade. Ashenvale feels the consequences of its neighbour's demise. There are demons in the north, naga in the west, and the rage of the furbolg has become endemic to the ecosystem.
And when you reach the east where mechanical noises split nature’s sound you realise the risk is even more immediate than you thought. There are now orcs cutting down swathes of the forest and hammering new paths into the side of the bark. They measure with a line and make an outline with a compass, roughing it out with chisels and axes. The resulting wood fills a fire, is turned to become an axe, a sword, or a spear. This is the clash of two ways of life. One is to keep the world the way it is, the other to keep going at all costs.
Eventually all Edens end. Signalled by frequent tree stumps, desert sand and bald rock. There are entire woods made up of giant trees cut down into parts. Like a great razor cut across the top of the earth.
There are too many rings to count in these stumps. But heave yourself up and stand in the middle of those concentric circles and you can see the history of the world. No matter what happens to this forest, this record will remain. If you could read its face like a book, there would be evidence in the rings that there was always beauty here. A cosmic hangover in the lines of the bark from thousands of moments over thousands of years.
There might even be a new knot now, evidence you walked through. That you stopped to pay respects to the great forest of the elves, and came away from it with a new appreciation for what nature can do, if it’s given enough time.
This is essay four in a set of six travel essays about World of Warcraft and Azeroth. To read the rest click here. For information on future seasons and games click here.